Eric Caravaca

Biography: life and films

Barely turned fifty, Éric Caravaca already has seventy screen credits to his name and he is certainly a familiar face to devotees of quality French cinema. Ironically, the film that first brought him to an international audience was one in which his face was obscured by layers of bandaging - no, he wasn't playing the Mummy, but an unfortunate casualty of WWI being treated for a facial disfigurement in the poignant wartime drama La Chambre des officiers (2001). Since then, Caravaca has become a favourite of serious auteur filmmakers, who are most able to make use of his talent for authentic character portrayal and his remarkable ability to project inner pain.

Éric Caravaca was born in Rennes, France on 21st November 1966. The son of a construction engineer, he studied drama at the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique in Paris, completing his education with a year's sabbatical at the Actors Studio in New York. On his return to Paris he went straight into the theatre. He made his screen debut in Diane Bertrand's Un samedi sur la terre (1996). His career received a significant boost when the director François Dupeyron gave him the lead role in his rural drama C'est quoi la vie (1999), the role for which he won the César for Most Promising Actor in 2000. Subsequently, Caravaca worked for Dupeyron on La Chambre des officiers (2001), in which he had one of his most challenging roles as an officer of the First World War in convalesce after being severely disfigured, and then the immigration-themed drama Inguelezi (2004).

By the mid 2000s, Éric Caravaca was firmly established as an actor of considerable ability, which he would put to the service of many capable film directors. In Patrice Chéreau's Son frère (2003), he gave one of his most committed performances as a vulnerable young gay man struggling to cope with his brother's terminal illness. Although he is more than equipped to take on roles in genre films - such as Guillaume Nicloux's thriller Cette femme-là (2003) and Cédric Anger's L'Avocat (2011) - and comedies like Catherine Corsini's Les Ambitieux (2007), Caravaca is at his best when working with established auteurs such as Jérôme Bonnell (J'attends quelqu'un (2006)), Lucas Belvaux (La Raison du plus faible (2006)) and Jean-Pierre Denis (Ici-bas (2012)). The intensity and depth that Caravaca brings to his performances are such that you cannot help becoming caught up in his characters' personal dramas.

In 2006, Éric Caravaca directed his first film, Le Passager, in which he starred with Julie Depardieu and Vincent Rotttiers. As well as appearing in several television films and series, including Emma (2011), L'Épervier (2011) and Paris (2015), he has also had a prominent stage career, appearing most notably in Samuel Beckett's En attendant Godot (1993), Marivaux's La Fausse Suivante (1999), Anton Tchekhov's Ivanov (2004) and Henrik Ibsen's Les Revenants (2013). It is on cinema screens that Éric Caravaca has had the greatest impact, and with so many directors lining up to use his talents it is reasonable to suppose that his best work is yet to come. Truly great actors don't come into their own until they are at least fifty.

Filmography

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